"Schopenhauer tells us of a colony of porcupines wont to huddle together...able neither to tolerate nor to do without one another, until they discovered that when they stood at a certain distance..they could delight in one another's individuality and enjoy one another's company. Unknown to themselves they'd invented civil association"

Saturday, July 30, 2011

George Will on Libertarianism

Over at the Washington Post George Will reviews the new book The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong With America by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch. What caught my eye in this was Will's conclusion:

"America is moving in the libertarians’ direction not because they have won an argument but because government and the sectors it dominates have made themselves ludicrous. This has, however, opened minds to the libertarians’ argument."

To my mind this is a key point which applies equally well to conservatives. The sad fact is--sad at least if you are a conservative--is that we haven't won the argument. To the extent that we have succeeded politically, it has been because liberalism has failed so spectacularly. Without the abject failure of the seventies Reagan would've never won in 1980, indeed probably never would've won the Republican nomination.